An initial £2 million has been donated by Sainsbury Management Fellows to help professional young engineers become entrepreneurs and business leadership in blue-chip companies.

Twenty-eight years ago Lord Sainsbury of Turville had the vision of getting  more professional engineers onto UK boards and created the SMF MBA scholarship to help young engineers gain the necessary business skills and experience.

Today that vision is a reality – £2 million worth of Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarships have been awarded to over 300 graduates. The majority have gone on to fulfill their ambitions and hold board and c-level positions or senior consulting roles in blue-chip companies.  Sixty beneficiaries are serial  entrepreneurs with innovative businesses that employ over 18,000 people.

The £2 million has been donated by former awardees of the MBA scholarship (known as SMFs), and from Lord Sainsbury, who is match funding all cash donations made by the SMFs for a period of five years.

Lord Sainsbury said: “Looking back at the original concept of the Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarship, it has proved its worth. The original idea behind the scheme was to attract into industry some of the best and brightest young engineers by enabling them to acquire the business skills which would help them rise quickly to the top of large British companies or set up their own high-tech businesses.

“I believe that for businessmen and women to be successful they need above all to understand the customers and the technology of their businesses, and this means that high-tech businesses need to be run by people with an engineering or scientific background.  Top executives need to have financial and general management skills but these are no substitute for a knowledge of the technology,” concluded Lord Sainsbury.

SMF President, David Falzani said, “We are aiming to raise £10 million to enable us to continue awarding £300,000 worth of Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA scholarships to young engineers annually.”

 

Lord Sainsbury with guests at the EIBF Donors’ Dinner:  Standing (L-R) Will Averdieck, David Falzani, James Raby, Lord Sainsbury, Ean Lewin, Nigel Wallbridge, Adam Bazire.   Seated(L-R) Mike Gansser-Potts, Simon Bonini, Imoni Akpofure, David Weston, William Burton, Henning von Spreckelsen.

Engineers in Business Fellowship (EIBF), the registered charity and fundraising entity of the Sainsbury Management Fellows scheme, is aiming to raise £5 million to start building an endowment fund which will enable The SMF scholarships to become self-funded so that the scheme can continue long into the future.

The fundraising campaign is off to a flying start with over £2 million raised from the Fellows and supporters.  To mark this great achievement, Lord Sainsbury hosted a ‘thank you dinner’ for the Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum donors.

Lord Sainsbury said, “I am delighted that the fundraising programme has passed the £2 million mark.  This is excellent progress and it means that Sainsbury Management Fellows believe in the scheme and share my ambitions for it.  I hope that next year we may see many more SMF donors around the table.”

The SMF community plays a critical role in supporting the development of the next generation of technology leaders for business and social enterprise.  It does this by promoting business education for engineers, focusing on innovation, management, and governance and by developing a network of business-focused engineers who identify and illustrate the merits of engineering for the public good.

The SMF scholarship helps the brightest young talent to acquire business skills that enable them to take on leadership positions in industry or to start business ventures that create jobs and growth in the global economy.

Summing up the evening with Lord Sainsbury, Simon Bonini, Chair of the EIBF Fundraising Committee said, “As well as sharing a fabulous meal with SMF friends, donors really appreciated the chance to meet Lord Sainsbury personally and talk with him individually in a relaxed and informal setting. The Donors’ Dinner will now be an annual event going forward.”

As the SMF scheme approaches its 30^th Anniversary next year, the EIBF Fundraising Committee has set the next target – to hit the £3 million mark in 2017.

Visit our  EIBF page to learn more about the fundraising campaign.  If you are interested in becoming a supporter, email the SMF Office.

 

Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) is running the Engineers in Business Competition for the third year, giving business and engineering students the opportunity to enter the ideas they create for their Entrepreneurship & Business (E&B) studies into the competition.

Sponsored by Sainsbury Management Fellows, the Engineers in Business competition is aimed at undergraduates who want to learn about entrepreneurship and experience the ingenuity process.

Competing teams must include engineering undergrads. By encouraging more commercial education for undergraduate engineers NUBS and SMF are enhancing students multi-disciplinary skills, increasing their employability and inspiring students to use their engineering skills in business innovation when they graduate. Since the competition was launched two years ago, there has been a 25% uplift in participation.

By encouraging more commercial education for undergraduate engineers NUBS and SMF are enhancing students multi-disciplinary skills, increasing their employability and inspiring students to use their engineering skills in business innovation when they graduate. Since the competition was launched two years ago, there has been a 25% uplift in participation.

The NUBS/SMF Engineers in Business Competition invites students interested in taking the Entrepreneurship & Business Module to enter their original product concept into the competition at the end of the course module. The students’ product concept must meet a real need in society, be well-researched and developed.  The competing teams are judged by SMFs, themselves engineers with business qualifications, who are entrepreneurs and business leaders.

During the judging, the competing teams must convince the judges of the viability of their idea by explaining the rationale for the product, their R&D process, understanding of customer needs, as well as their thoughts on finance and marketing.

To date first-prize winning teams have brought two innovative concepts forward and won cash and career mentoring prizes:

• Precicio Polo created a prototype of a new design for the traditional polo mallet head which makes it easier to wield by people of smaller physical stature; this typically applies to female and young players. The aim is to even out the playing field for women by reducing the mallet’s weight, improving accuracy and durability and thus increase the level of participation in the sport.
• Team SenSei created a prototype of a sensory glove that emitted a gentle alert indicating the proximity of objects, allowing blind people to navigate safely through everyday life.

SMF President David Falzani said, “Some of the most important global challenges we face today are not just technical challenges, but require the ability to link technologies to an understanding of the market mechanism, business skills, and entrepreneurial commercial thinking. These challenges include delivering and growing secure and affordable supplies of clean water and of energy to meet the needs and expectations of a fast-growing global population.

“Some of the problems can be alleviated by injecting the creativity and excitement of commercial education and commercial opportunity into undergraduate degrees. It may also impact upon other common criticism of technical graduates in general. Typically these are reported as a lack of personal communication and team-working skills and too narrow skills set. The Entrepreneur & Business Module and Engineers in Business Competition addresses key skills gaps and inspires students to use their engineering skills to solve problems in society.”

If you are a university/business school interested in running the Engineers in Business Competition, contact Cathy Breeze.

Sainsbury Management Fellows’ 2016 Hard Hat Index reveals the resilience of the hard hat as the symbol of engineering. Despite leading figures in the engineering community and engineering students calling for the hard hat to be banned from promotional and educational material, it remains dominant, giving the wrong impression of the role of an engineer according to SMF.

Four years into SMFs’ tracking, the use of hard hats in the engineering media is as high as the previous year’s Index, with 257 images appearing in the 17 titles monitored over 12 months. This figure is also the highest since the Index was launched in 2013.

The current SMF Hard Hat Index shows:

Split between advertising and articles: The 257 hard hat images include adverts and articles published in the targeted engineering titles. The overall figure has increased each year and this year’s 257 images represents a 39% rise on the 2013 results.

Split between advertising and articles: The 257 hard hat images include adverts and articles published in the targeted engineering titles. The overall figure has increased each year and this year’s 257 images represents a 39% rise on the 2013 results.

Hard Hats more prevalent in articles: Editorial leads the way in its attachment to hard hats. An all time high of 158 hard hats were recorded in this year’s Index, a 5.33% increase over last year.  The number of hard hats featured in articles since the Index began has increased exponentially – when comparing 2016 to  2013, there is a 135% increase in hard hat articles.

 

Advertising presents a glimmer of hope: While the combined figure for advertising and editorial has not fallen, the use of hard hats in advertising has ebbed and flowed over the four years and this year experienced a decline of 7.47% – 99 hard hat advertisements in 2016, compared to 107 last year.

Some titles shine: Six different publications didn’t use either adverts or editorials featuring hard hats during the monitoring period.

David Falzani, President of SMF which runs an MBA scholarship scheme for young engineers said, “The Hard Hat Index points out how the engineering community is choosing to represent itself in terms of image and emotional value. Generations Y and X are far more image and brand conscious than before. Image and emotional value are vital in our ability to attract, inspire, recruit and retain bright young people. This is a serious national challenge which we must all embrace.”
Engineering Students Critique Job Ads and Create Ad Briefs

To get a deeper understanding of reactions to images in engineering recruitment ads, SMF conducted a workshop with engineering undergraduates. Seventy students competing for an Engineering Leadership Advanced Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering took part in the workshop. The vast majority of the 30 advertisements reviewed fell into the negative category with only 20% of them receiving some positive feedback. The advertisements deemed better did not rely on stereotypical images of engineers, for example, adverts by Dyson and Saudi Aramco.

The engineering undergraduates identified the following image problems, saying many of the ads were unattractive and uninspiring:

 

• No photos to visually communicate about the jobs
• Photos that present a stereotypical image of engineers including hard hats
• Photos that were too technical or irrelevant to the job being advertised
• Generic library photos

David Falzani concluded, “Engineering professionals, institutions and students are  saying that stereotypical images of engineers need to change.  Our Hard Hat Index creates the opportunity for us to keep the debate alive and highlight the downsides of using  inappropriate images to represent engineers.”

For full size photos and PDFs of the images in this article visit the Online Press Room

1. The Hard Hat Index charts (PDF)
2. Hard Hat Index photos (JPEGS)
3. Student Job Advertising Workshop output (PDF and JPEG)
4. Photos of the Students at the Workshop

Notes 

The SMF Hard Hat Index is compiled by tracking the number of advertisements and articles that feature hard hats in 16 print and one online engineering publication.  The 2016 SMF Hard Hat Index monitoring period ran from May 2015 to April 2016.

The Advertising Job Advertising Workshop Report undertaken by 70 engineering  undergraduates shows the positive and negative feedback  as well as the students’ views on how to construct more effective advertisements.

Aerospace design specialist Sinead O’Sullivan is one of nine young engineers to share £270,000 worth of Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarships to study for an MBA at a leading business school.

The Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF) scheme enables awardees to add business skills to their engineering expertise. Each candidate passed a rigorous interview panel comprising Fellows from the Royal Academy of Engineering and SMF by demonstrating a wide range of attributes including leadership skills and the potential to achieve senior management responsibility early in their career.

The other awardees are John Collins, William Jones, Pierre-Nicolas Queyroux, Olubusola Yejide and Christopher Hughes who chose INSEAD; Eirini Koukaki, Evridiki Giamouzi, Mohammad Saquib who selected LBS. Sinead O’Sullivan is taking her MBA at Harvard.

Applications Open for Next Round of Awards Valued at £300,000
The Royal Academy of Engineering has opened the next round of applications for engineers who want to expand their career into business. Ten scholarships are available and applications can be made individually or in conjunction with an employer. To apply, candidates need to complete the online application form. The application deadline closes on 6 June 2016.

SMF President, David Falzani, said: “Lord Sainsbury’s vision and investment in the scholarship has produced more than 300 SMFs. These SMFs have created 220 successful new businesses, raised £1.8 billion in investment, generated 18,000 new jobs, and 260 support and mentor young engineers.”

Awardee Case Study – Sinead O’Sullivan
O’Sullivan has a first degree and a Masters in Aerospace Engineering from prestigious universities, and a Certificate of Space Studies from the International Space University in France.

Before applying for the SMF scholarship, O’Sullivan was handling projects such as the Mars Mission design for NASA, and creating new technologies for the Navy and the Federal Aviation Administration. She still holds the position of co-lead for Space Technologies for the Space Generation Advisory Council and is a Research Fellow in Space Technologies for the United States Center for Climate and Security.

O’Sullivan said: “I’m planning to return to the aerospace industry after graduation. The MBA will help me advance my engineering career by enabling me to learn hard skills such as financial modelling and soft skills like the art of negotiating. An MBA is a great way to leverage my engineering background to enable me to commercialise a lot of the technology that I’m working with.

“The scholarship means I can have an unparalleled learning experience whilst being able to stay true to my passion for the aerospace industry and be able to follow a career in engineering afterwards. The MBA will allow me to move into the C-suite faster and give me the core competencies to make a difference in my field.

“Since starting at Harvard I have set up a US-based company specialising in space technologies which has already received significant funding. After my MBA, my goal is to open a UK office to serve the European market. The UK has incredible potential for STEM start-ups.”

DUBLIN, Ireland, April 12, 2016 – Foundry Innovation & Research 1, Ltd. (“FIRE1”) today announced it has closed its Series B financing, appointed Conor Hanley as President and CEO, and added other new senior leaders to its team including John Britton, Vice President of Commercial Operations, and Fiachra Sweeney, Senior Director of Engineering.

The Company, which is developing a novel remote monitoring device, raised USD 7.5 million from existing investors including leading venture capital firms Lightstone Ventures and New Enterprise Associates, as well as Medtronic.  FIRE1 is the 15^th medical device company founded by The Foundry.  With this financing, Foundry Managing Director Mark Deem was also appointed Chairman of the Board.

“With the support from these premier investors, the strength of our newly expanded leadership team, and the Irish government aggressively pushing the connected health ecosystem, we are in a very strong position to accelerate the development and commercialisation of our first product,” said Conor Hanley, FIRE1 CEO and President.  “This investment underscores global unmet needs in healthcare delivery, especially in predicting the onset of major diseases.”

Prior to joining FIRE1, Hanley held senior management positions with ResMed, including leading the Company’s Chronic Disease Management Solutions division, its Cardiology business, and its Ventures and Initiatives business units.  Prior to ResMed, he was CEO and co-founder of BiancaMed, which commercialised a novel method to provide connected health solutions, and was acquired by ResMed in 2011. Hanley received a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from INSEAD, and a First Class Honours B.E. from University College Dublin.

John Britton, Vice President, Commercial Operations, joins FIRE1 with deep expertise in bringing innovative medical technologies to market.  Most recently with ResMed, Britton led the commercialisation of a novel, non-contact sensing technology.  Previously, he was an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Co. where he worked in a variety of industries, including healthcare. He received an MBA from the UCD Smurfit School of Business, and was a post-doctoral researcher in Trinity College Dublin’s Centre for Bioengineering, and has a First Class Honours degree in Mechanical Engineering from University College Dublin.

Fiachra Sweeney joins FIRE1 as Senior Director of Engineering and has extensive background in medical device research, development, sales and marketing.  Prior to FIRE1, he was with Nypro Healthcare where he was responsible for the design and development of a connected auto-injector device.  Previously, he was with Medtronic in a variety of product development and engineering management roles, most recently leading a team through the development, approval and commercialisation of a novel coronary angioplasty catheter.  Fiachra has a Biomedical Engineering degree from NUI Galway and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Business.

About FIRE1
Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, FIRE1 is a medical device company developing a novel remote monitoring device.   For more information, please visit www.fire1foundry.com.

About The Foundry
The Foundry was founded in 1998 to rapidly turn the best concepts into successful new medical device companies. In addition to inventing new technologies itself, The Foundry works closely with outside clinicians and inventors with promising ideas. Over the past eighteen years, The Foundry has formed over fifteen new companies, including Ardian (acquired by Medtronic), Cabochon Aesthetics (acquired by Ulthera/Merz), Cierra (acquired by Terumo), Concentric Medical (acquired by Stryker), Cotera, Emphasys Medical, Evalve (acquired by Abbott Labs), First to File (acquired by Mark Monitor), Holaira, Miramar Labs, Satiety, Twelve (acquired by Medtronic), XTENT (Nasdaq: XTNT), and the ophthalmic company incubator Forsight Labs. The Foundry, LLC is located in Menlo Park, California. For more information, visit: www.thefoundry.com.

About NEA
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With nearly $17 billion in cumulative committed capital since inception, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm’s long track record of successful investing includes more than 200 portfolio company IPOs and more than 320 acquisitions. www.nea.com.

About Lightstone Ventures
Lightstone Ventures (LSV) was founded in 2012 by the General Partners of the life science teams at Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV) and Morgenthaler Ventures to invest in early-stage breakthrough medical device and biopharmaceutical companies that have the potential to change medicine. Members of the Lightstone team have been involved in several of the largest, venture-backed life science exits over the last decade. The firm now has offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.lightstonevc.com.

About Medtronic
Medtronic plc (www.medtronic.com), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is among the world’s largest medical technology, services and solutions companies – alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for millions of people around the world. Medtronic employs more than 85,000 people worldwide, serving physicians, hospitals and patients in approximately 160 countries. The company is focused on collaborating with stakeholders around the world to take healthcare Further, Together.

Media Contact:
Donna von Halle
donna@vonhalle.net

Sainsbury Management Fellow, Marcus Coleman has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Seafish from Compass Point Business Services where, as Managing Director, he led a multi-disciplinary organisation with a staff of 250 and a client base of more than 200,000 Lincolnshire residents.

Under his leadership, Compass Point has established one of the most innovative and successful shared services models in the sector, reducing costs by around 25%.

Marcus has a wealth of senior executive experience in both the public and private sector and it was clear to the interviewing panel that his strategic leadership skills and his proven track record of delivery across a range of different working environments would allow him to quickly add value to the UK seafood industry.

Marcus will take up the position at Seafish in January 2016.

For the full press release visit Seafish.

 

 

 

Sainsbury Management Fellows has launched its 2015 Hard Hat Index which shows that the engineering sector is still firmly wedded to using hard hat images to promote engineers and engineering jobs. SMF believes that the association with hard hats conjures up the wrong image and this misleading image is one of the key factors preventing young people from choosing engineering careers and parents discouraging engineering as a career choice. This contributes to the huge shortfall of engineers in the UK.

The 2015 SMF Hard Hat Index recorded a total of 257 hard hat images depicting engineering in advertising and editorials in selected engineering publications. Compared to 2013, this is a 39% increase in the total number of hard hat images used to promote engineering.

However, there are tentative signs of a breakthrough on the advertising front. There were 107 such images in adverts compared to 150 in articles. But things are not looking promising on the editorial front. Comparing the 2013 report to the latest Index, there has been a staggering 123% increase in the use of hard hats in editorial, compared with a 9.32% decrease in adverts. The latter may be an indication that companies are starting to use more inspiring and thought-provoking images in their advertising campaigns.

A YouGov survey conducted for SMF when it launched the Hard Hat Service back in 2012 revealed that just 19% of people polled think of engineers having exciting careers and only 36% see them as people who change our lives, even though they are the heart of innovation across all industries.

Although the SMF Hard Hat Index is a whimsical study akin to the Economist’s Big Max Index, it allows SMF to raise awareness of the problem of the visual representation of engineers is the media.

SMF President David Falzani said, “Engineers change every aspect of our lives, from medicine to social media. Yet, the hard hat has become synonymous with engineering jobs, limiting the perception of our diverse profession. This has a real impact on young people choosing not to go into engineering and employers’ ability to recruit engineering graduates who don’t relate to hard hat jobs.

The Hard Hat Index helps to stimulate discussion and we have seen a higher profile debate on the engineering brand in the media. Recently Professor Dame Ann Dowling,  President, Royal Academy of Engineering, stated in a BBC Radio 4 interview that when you Google the word engineer, many hard hat images appear and we need a change.”

We will continue to highlight the unhelpfulness of using hard hats to brand engineers to continue to raise awareness of the problem and hopefully change. The fall in the use of hard hats in adverts is a start but we have a long way to go.”